DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story

Synopsis

Grab Life By The Ball

When megalomaniacal White Goodman, the owner of a trendy, high-end fitness center, makes a move to take over the struggling local gym run by happy-go-lucky Pete La Fleur, there's only one way for La Fleur to fight back: dodgeball. Aided by a dodgeball guru and Goodman's attorney, La Fleur and his rag-tag team of underdogs launch a knock-down, drag-out battle in which the winner takes all.

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"If you want to have dodgeball victory, you have to grab it by its haunches and you gotta hump it into submission!"

A hilariously random and delightfully stupid comedy in spite of its conventional narrative. Vince Vaughn and Ben Stiller commit to the goofy antics of Rawson Thurber's screenplay and the result is one of the best 80s comedies not released in the 1980s. Everybody swings for the fences in this and DodgeBall manages to get away relatively unscathed. Jason Bateman's character shouldn't work at all and somehow it totally does.

Over the years certain actors have grated on me with one annoying performance or movie after another stirring my anger towards them. My shit list includes Shia LaBeouf, Kevin James, Danny fucking Dyer, Tyler Perry, and Vince Vaughn. Vaughn's recent output has been nothing short of abysmal, with The Internship among the most blatant product placement advert ever made. It's frustrating, because every now and again he delivers in something special, they're few and far between, but when you think about his smaller turns in the likes of Into The Wild and even Starsky and Hutch, he does have a smidgeon of talent. In Dodgeball however, surrounded by a great ensemble cast, he's actually really good, something he should try…

Lance Armstrong: Could I get a bottle of water? Hey, aren't you Peter La Fleur?

Peter La Fleur: Lance Armstrong!

Lance Armstrong: Yeah, that's me. But I'm a big fan of yours.

Peter La Fleur: Really?

Lance Armstrong: Yeah, I've been watching the dodgeball tournament on the Ocho. ESPN 8. I just can't get enough of it. But, good luck in the tournament. I'm really pulling for you against those jerks from Globo Gym. I think you better hurry up or you're gonna be late.

Peter La Fleur: Uh, actually I decided to quit... Lance.

Lance Armstrong: Quit? You know, once I was thinking about quitting when I was diagnosed with brain, lung and testicular cancer, all at the same…

It’s interesting that this movie is quoted constantly, but not many people talk about it as one of the better 2000s comedies. Maybe it’s because many of the jokes have aged horrifically as culture changed, but it’s still a laugh out loud comedy. Ben Stiller gives one of his top 5 performances as White Goodman and a amazing cast of side characters that are truly weird fucking personalities:

David Hasselhoff Jason Bateman as the announcer Lance Armstrong Justin Long Patches O’Houlihan Steve the Pirate William Shatner Taser, Laser, and all the Asers

Fluffy, 'stick it to the man' comedy. Ben Stiller delivers an icon to cinema as White Goodman. Everyone here is doing their own thing and it brings the final product into a sense of characterised community. Good stuff.

Just like with Team America, Bruce Almighty, and School of Rock, my late childhood/early adolescence was massively defined by a rambunctious amount of repeat viewings of Dodgeball.

Partially because everyone of my generation in schools everywhere were really into these very-of-the-early-2000's comedies we were all growing up with (because, well, we were kids of the early 2000's).

And partially because I found these comedies endlessly hilarious, no matter how many times I watched them (which was - and I cannot stress this enough - a lot).

So, as this particular re-watch of Dodgeball feels like it's probably my 750th repeat viewing, you'd figure there'd be nothing new left to see that I…

It’s interesting that this movie is quoted constantly, but not many people talk about it as one of the better 2000s comedies. Maybe it’s because many of the jokes have aged horrifically as culture changed, but it’s still a laugh out loud comedy. Ben Stiller gives one of his top 5 performances as White Goodman and a amazing cast of side characters that are truly weird fucking personalities:

David Hasselhoff Jason Bateman as the announcer Lance Armstrong Justin Long Patches O’Houlihan Steve the Pirate William Shatner Taser, Laser, and all the Asers

This film did not age as well as I wish it had. I loved this movie in Highschool, watching it now it is more cringy than I remember. Some fantastic lines but overall it didn’t stand the test of time for me.